Is South Florida vulnerable to Earthquakes?

The destructive damages lined up due to the consecutive earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.4 quake has severely impacted Puerto Rico. And people cannot help but panic and get curious about these earthquakes affecting Florida as well. The concern and anxiety are entirely justifiable because we aren’t unaware of the hurricane season that affects Puerto Rico. What happens there could affect South Florida as well if the extensive tropical system decides to take a southward swirl, which is in the general direction of the mainland of South Florida.

Continue reading the article to find out is like Hurricanes the people of South Florida should be concerned with the earthquakes affecting Puerto Rico or not.

Will earthquakes affect South Florida as well?

No, unlike hurricanes, the earthquakes affecting Puerto Rico are not a situation of concern for the South Floridians. However, it is a matter of survival for the Puerto Ricans as the geography of South Florida, and Puerto Rico is entirely different. While the people of South Florida enjoy the Sunshine State and need not fret about the dreading earthquakes, people on the islands can never be too careful about the situation.

Why is Puerto Rico at such hefty risk?

The risk of experiencing earthquakes in Puerto Rico is so evident because of the rapid movement of the tectonic plates in the region. The place is mostly a colossal slab of Earth that is resting in a similar way just as the pieces of the puzzles fit together to give a complete picture. However, unlike the benign puzzles that we are thinking of, tectonic plates of the Earth are always in continuous motion. Whenever, these tectonic plates either bump, go up or slide past one another, earthquakes are caused.

This is the very reason that Puerto Rico experiences earthquakes so vividly and almost in series as compared to that of Florida. The island of Puerto Rico is nestled close to the meeting point of the Caribbean tectonic plate and the North American tectonic plate. And the areas lining near the significant plate boundaries are always in continuous exposure to earthquakes. But, there is no such scene taking place around South Florida.

Do earthquakes only affect the places with tectonic plate hotspots?

Well, by reading the above points, you must be confused about whether other places on the Earth can ever be affected by an earthquake or not. Then let us tell you that though the areas lining the tectonic plate unisons are always the prime locations to be affected by earthquakes. But, it is not necessary that other places are safe from being affected by earthquakes.

Although there are only a handful of tectonic plates lining the surface of Earth, the tectonic plates have their fault lines, which sometimes generate their earthquakes. The fault lines are generally considerable breaks in the formation of the ground after the large plates have bumped into each other. Typically, these broken lines are located far from the meeting point of plate boundaries. There are fault lines on the North American plate that are found to be existing in the western region of the United States and along River Mississippi in an area renowned as the New Madrid Fault.